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Jerry Bywaters – Lone Star Printmaker chronicles the printmaking career of Texas regionalist artist Jerry Bywaters (1906 – 1989). In 1935, Bywaters began recording the prints he made, primarily lithographs, when he noted ‘“Gargantua” First litho made (1935)’ on the first page of his print notebook. This study is based on that notebook and places Bywaters’s printmaking career within the context of art developments in Dallas through the 1940s. It includes a catalogue of his prints, information regarding the history of each print, and reproductions of his known illustrations and ephemera.

Bywaters played a major role in establishing the Texas Regionalism movement of the 1930s and 1940s. From his early days as a student at Southern Methodist University in the 1920s, and his subsequent association with the University’s scholarly journal Southwest Review, Bywaters looked to his southwest surroundings for inspiration. In May 1938, Bywaters was one of sixteen Texas artists who formed their own printmakers’ organization, the Lone Star Printmakers, which was loosely patterned on the Associated American Artists organization. As a printmaker and a founding member of the organization, Bywaters supported the growth of interest in printmaking in Texas. The printmaking medium allowed Bywaters to produce multiple copies of his art and to further his campaign of regionalism by circulating his images to a wide audience. World War Two caused the Lone Star Printmakers to disband – the last print circuit was in 1942. In 1943, Bywaters was appointed director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, a position he held for twenty years. Administrative responsibilities at the Museum slowed Bywaters’s printmaking career. He created his last print, Near Fort Garland, Colo., in 1948.